FK Guest Contributor Jade Suine chats to Justine creator of paper artistry blog Upon a Fold

Tell us a little about your blog and why you started it?
My blog is all about paper; paper products, paper artists, paper exhibitions, paper shops, paper-craft and just about anything and everything to do with paper. I started the blog because it seemed like the best way to connect with other paperphiles. There is a large paper-loving community out there and I felt like I had so much to share.

Is there a pattern in your posting habits?
My posting habits are definitely random. I try to blog as often as I can, but basically it comes down to whenever I have a spare moment, which is usually late at night or in the early hours of the morning. For me it’s like keeping a diary, it is nice to have somewhere to refer back to for inspiration of the paper kind.

Do you have any tips or hints about successfully running your own blog that you would like to share?
I love reading blogs that predominantly post original content, rather than content found via other blogs. This motivates me to try and do that myself and as an example I recently blogged about my trip to Tokyo, sharing information about paper shops and other places of interest. The response was great and many people began emailing me to say they had booked tickets to Tokyo based solely on those posts. To me that was unbelievable! My blogging tip would be to post unique material as much as possible. Links are important too, be sure to provide them so your readers can delve further into the subject if they wish.

How has blogging impacted your own paper work?
Part of my work is running the Upon a Fold online paper shop and the blog helps bring in new customers as well as allowing me to announce when new products have been added to the store, (both of which help keep the shop running). On a more creative level though, the blog inspires me each day. I wouldn’t call myself a paper artist, I’m a graphic designer, but I work with paper everyday and via the blog I have discovered so many amazing artists and designers creating with paper in ways I thought were impossible. Sometimes I’ll look at an object and wonder how it could possibly be made of paper? Fewer boundaries means more experimentation, and realising you’ve created something quite beautiful by mistake is a wonderful thing! Since starting the blog I’d say I’ve definitely learnt to experiment more with my work.

What do you love most about blogging?
I love that I can share all my favourite papery things with thousands of people all over the world in a just matter of minutes. I don’t think I will ever cease to find that amazing.

Can you share with us your 5 favourite blogs?
Selecting only 5 is hard, as I have so many favourite blogs and am discovering new ones everyday. Today my top 5 would be the following, for a few different reasons. They are all beautiful, honest and unaffected. They are colourful, original and thoughtful too. Sometimes I feel like I need a reminder to just relax when I’m blogging and be myself. These bloggers all do that so well.

Anna Emilia  annaemilial.blogspot.com
Grijs grijs.blogspot.com
Anja Mulder anmulder.blogspot.com
Itis Edition  itisedition.blogspot.com
Karen Barbe blog.karenbarbe.com

uponafold.com.au/blog

Part magazine, part bulletin, part business resource, ADU is a publication and archive about design and creativity published to encourage the formation of a new community of designers — one that is confident and successful in business, adventurous and free-thinking, informed and generous with knowledge, and able to reflect with intelligence on the impact of its work.

ADU is an independent yet strongly collaborative voice within the design sector with a broad network that can connect designers from across the country to the resources they need.

news room: a listing of the latest competitions, grants, opportunities, residencies and workshops
interviews/features: features and interviews posted monthly and centred on creative people with something to say
creative entrepreneur: structured advice, tools and business news from around the world
tool kit: access to free business tools to assist the day to day running of a creative business
the springboard project: an initiative built on mentorship, business workshops, and an active design community

While anchored online, ADU is also a vehicle for workshops, forums and exhibitions produced to encourage discourse and develop skills around design, creativity, entrepreneurship and ideas. ADU collaborates with design institutions and existing initiatives to enable Australian designers to develop new markets at home and abroad.

Stay tuned for more exciting updates to come on the ADU website and get on their monthly newsletter to hear it all as it happens. http://www.australiandesignunit.com/

FK talks to the lovely Kate Vandermeer from iSpyStyle about her website, design workshops and consultancy business.

Tell us a little about iSpyStyle.
iSpyStyle is a slightly self-indulgent business in the sense that I am forever curious about discovering how creative people do what they do, when they came up with their “idea” and what makes them tick. I also love connecting interesting people in the industry.

Essentially there are 3 areas to iSpyStyle:
1. The website – a central hub for articles, info, advice, my little black book of contacts and great visual merchandising imagery.
2. Consultancy – this is where I work with brands (small to medium size) to help them with their strategies be it branding, marketing or online. I also consult to WGSN with trend reporting and Daily addict as a Melbourne writer for their newsletter
3. Workshops – whether private or ticketed events, the workshops are real time, interactive and involve me speaking about marketing, branding, social media, visual merchandising and career development in the creative industries.

What is your background, and what inspired you to start iSpyStyle?
I was working at stylehunter.com as brand manager and co-creator and loving the online space, however I was being approached to do judging, lecturing, writing and trend reporting work and loved the diversity of working across so many area’s and felt that I would like to work more in industry and less direct to consumer. So I put togethor a business plan with my partner and we worked through the concept and the reality of how we’d make it viable and I left stylehunter and began iSpyStyle in April 2009.

Tell us a little bit about the Craft & Business Workshops and why you started them?
I’ve always loved craft and design and particularly this new wave of creatives who have adopted old skool techniques. I began my own craft/design business at 23 and found that taking it from a hobby to a business was the hard bit, but I seemed to have a knack for applying some simple business and marketing concepts on a shoestring budget. When we worked on the business plan, I knew I wanted to share some of this knowledge with the creatives that aren’t necessarily business minded and a Craft & Business workshop was the next step.
So this workshop takes you through the basics of business, branding, marketing and trends. The essentials about how to deal with buyers, what tools you need to get ahead and some helpful hints that are real life lessons I learned along the way. It’s very specific with lots of info and real plans of attack – none of this wishy washy stuff!

What kind of info and resources can we find on iSpyStyle?
Well, iSpyStyle appeals to both the left and right brain – there are articles to stimulate, inspire and inform as well as some beautiful imagery to admire. Probably some of the most popular sections are:
a. Profiles – Articles on inspiring designers of all disciplines about their business  and their business model
b. Directory links for like minded Craft & Design sites
c. Retail Spy for interesting retailers visual merchandising
d. Design diary for unique events, workshops and exhibitions
e. Spy News for inspiring, educational and interesting articles I’ve sifted through the net for
f. Spy Advice – 101 advice on e-newsletter marketing, retailing, iphone apps, grants for designers etc.

What do you love about working within the Design Industry, and what inspires you?
Goodness gracious.. big question… I love how someone who’s a bit motivated and clever can create something amazing out of an idea and some hard work. I know this sounds lame, but I love helping others achieve their goals by offering them advice, connecting them with others who might be able to improve their business. I love how the design industry is inherently admirers of anything smart, creative and special and (despite some initial ego) are happy to help promote others.

http://www.ispystyle.net/

FK talk to Zolton from the team behind Lost at E Minor, about new Aussie based website The Colour.

Tell us about the concept behind The Colour?
The Colour is a showcase for all that superlative Australian creative talent out there! We feature the best of Australian culture through beautiful images, with all the content submitted by our readers, who are able to use the site to prop their own work, or the work of a fellow Aussie they admire.

What was the motivation to developing The Colour?
We’ve been propping Aussie artists for years now on our other site, Lost At E Minor, and having seen so much inspiring work, as well as fielded numerous submissions from Aussies over the years, we decided that there was a need for a site like this that showcased only Australian work and enabled readers to determine what was worthy of the attention the content on the site receives. Each post on The Colour links off to the featured person’s website, so it helps support and grow the local creative space.

How long has it been live and how has the reaction been so far?
It’s been live for just a few weeks now, but we’re already getting submissions daily, which has been encouraging. The reaction all round has been very supportive and we’re confident that The Colour will grow quite quickly.

Why have you targeted Aussie culture and not worldwide?
Lost At E Minor, while being very Australian-centric, does not exclusively feature Aussie content. There’s so much great work coming out of Australia that a solely site dedicated to promoting it is long overdue. We know Aussie culture well, so we’ve put our hands up to take it on.

Who can be a part of The Colour and what are the guidelines in being involved?
Anyone can be a part of it: artists, musicians, designers, photographers, fashion labels, or anyone who has seen something that has inspired them. The only criteria is that the submitted images are beautiful and inspiring, and that it has an Australian-flavour. More information can be found here: http://www.thecolour.com.au/content-guidelines/. This is a chance to give props to all those talented peeps out there, so get stuck in and submit away.

http://www.thecolour.com.au/

FK talks to Pip Jamieson, one half of amazing new networking website for creative Australians The Loop.

Tell us about the concept behind your new website The Loop.
THE LOOP is a brand new career networking site for people in Australian creative industries including designers, animators, illustrators, art directors, artists, photographers, writers, directors, producers and other creative-minded & technical roles. It’s like a mix of Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and Seek.
It’s a place where creatives can promote themselves online by creating a free online multimedia profile; including portfolio, showreel and resume. The aim of the site is to help connect creatives with one-another and with industry, with the eventual aim of bagging them that dream collaborator, job or client.

What are your backgrounds and how did it lead it developing The Loop?
My partner in crime (Matt) and I used to work at MTV; Matt in Digital and I was in Marketing. The idea for The Loop was born out of my frustration in finding fresh creative talent – we were overly dependent on word of mouth and incredible people were slipping through the net.
On the flip side Matt, being the digital guy, was constantly being asked by other creatives for advice on the best way to build their own websites to showcase their work online and promote themselves to potential employers and clients. We brought these two frustrations together and The Loop was born.

How long has it been live and what has the response been so far?
We’ve only been live for just over four months and to be honest we’ve been totally overwhelmed by the response with 3500 + Australian creatives already profiling themselves on the site and traffic doubling week on week. We’ve also been lucky enough to attract some incredible Australian brands to the site including: Discovery Networks, Frost Design, Animal Logic, MTV Networks, Moon Communications, Jack Watts Currie, Toko, Hopscotch Films, Sixty40, Deepend, the white agency and loads more.

About three weeks after launch a graphic designer on the site emailed us to say that they had just been headhunted by an amazing agency. I can’t tell you what a buzz it was to know that not only was the site up and running, but it was also working  - people were getting jobs! Now we get emails like that all the time, I can’t tell you how incredible it feels!

What made you focus on the Australian creative community?
The Australian creative industry is going from strength to strength. Growth is outstripping most other industries and we have more and more students graduating in creative minded subjects than ever before. However, at the moment there is limited opportunity to see what other creatives are doing outside the office, studio or industry body event. We wanted to create a space where people could be inspired to collaborate and showcase their work to others, with the eventual aim of securing that dream employer or client.

How can people get involved in The Loop?
People can create a FREE online portfolio by visiting www.theloop.com.au, clicking on “Create Your Profile” and then follow the simple step-by-step instructions. For more information about the site just hit www.theloop.com.au/about.

Some samples:

Lucy Hope – Illustrator - www.theloop.com.au/lucyhope

Robert Connelly – Designer & Director – www.theloop.com.au/robertconnelly

Nirrimi Hakanson – Photographer - www.theloop.com.au/Nirrimi

Chrissy Lau – Illustrator - www.theloop.com.au/deciphertheday

FK chats to the lovely Jen from her ethical online shop, Bluecaravan

Tell us a bit about Bluecaravan, and the concept behind the online store.
Bluecaravan is Australia’s first (possibly the world’s first?) online ethical design marketplace that showcases a super-lovely curated range of contemporary products. We support direct trade with young and emerging designers, we insist on ethical production practices both locally and overseas, and we love sweat-free and fairtrade certification. The idea behind Bluecaravan is to repackage ‘ethical’ as an edgy, contemporary, quirky and beautiful concept, and show people that making good choices in the way they buy is much easier than they think. By creating a community of ethical designers, we hope to make that totally easy! Style, and ethics don’t have to be distant cousins… Bluecaravan is so very much not about guilt tripping into buying things that ‘you should…”, it’s about buying great products because you love them, and walking away with a big fat ethical bonus!

You describe the shop as an ethical design market. What are the requirements of designers being stocked on Bluecaravan, and why do you think this is important?
For a designer to be accepted to sell on Bluecaravan, firstly their design aesthetic  needs to meet ours. If their style suits, then we step through the ethical criteria. The term ‘ethical’ is broad and overused, so we have drawn a very clear line in the sand. On Bluecaravan ‘ethical’ refers first and foremost to production practice. In other words… is a 100% organic hemp piece of clothing made in a chinese sweat-shop ‘ethical’ ? No! It may be is ‘eco’, but it’s not ‘ethical’. (Yes, there are many products on BC that are both ‘eco’ and ‘ethical’). We love handmade (of course), and we consider a direct relationship between an employee and a designer creating small runs ethical. Beyond that, any factories used would need to be certified ‘sweat-free’. We love fairtrade, and are totally inspired by designers who have been able to create co-ops, or engage communities in creating their products – but only when it is direct. As soon as there is a ‘middle man’ creaming off all the profits, you simply end up with (or create great potential for) a remote series of ‘sweat-shops’ – whether that is in a western country or a developing country (NB Australian sweat-shops are a huge problem – see Ethical Clothing Australia).

What were you doing before Bluecaravan and what lead you to get started?
Before starting Bluecaravan I was studying sustainable design, after having finished a degree in politics and community development – while being ‘home’ with the kidlets. We have lived in the  Byron hinterland for about 13 years,  and back in Sydney I did in-house graphic design and desktop publishing for a company in Surry Hills… I’ve always had an interest in design, and very much believe in the transformative potential of alternative economies. The handmade movement is a case in point. It really was a culmination of all the different interests and education in my life that led me to start Bluecaravan. Absolutely a love job that I totally believe in.

When did you launch your online store and what was the motivation?
Bluecaravan celebrated it’s official first birthday (of the online store) last July, but we were ‘live’ for  6 months before that. The motivation of creating the online store was to create a backbone for an active community. We have a number of new features on the site to further build that community, but are holding tight till the new year for a wee little ‘re-launch’ (Shhh).

What makes your store unique?
Bluecaravan is unique in lots of ways.  We are the first large scale Australian online ‘marketplace’ that is curated and design based. We are also the only Australian (possibly international) marketplace that is based on ethical design. That is, all our products have been MADE ethically and are motivated by good design. There is enough ‘loose hemp fashion’ out there, so we’ve made a particular point of being ethical… in a different way.

What do you look for in the products you stock at Bluecaravan?
When choosing designers to be a part of Bluecaravan, we look for all the ethical criteria as described above, but we are also looking for unique, beautiful, well made products that haven’t saturated the market. Even the wonderful world of handmade can get a bit ‘tired’ or repetitive (until the next pioneers strut their stuff), so we really want to keep it… fresh. Also, by introducing products and “slow” fashion that is made on a larger scale (ie not always exclusively by the designer alone) we’ve discovered a whole other world of amazing limited edition sustainable design.

What is the hardest part about running a business, and what do you love the most?
The hardest part about running Bluecaravan is easily the issue of TIME. The weeks are so damn short!  We have a little team on the job, but it’s just about time to start expanding (yikes). The part I like best is seeing nervous designers coming in to ‘test’ their product and getting great results with both sales and the press. Immensely satisfying seeing the process at work. I have to admit, I love all the positive feedback too!

www.bluecaravan.net

FK chat to the lovely Angela D’Alton about her online store Leeloo just turning 4!

Tell us a bit about Leeloo, and the concept behind the online store.
Leeloo is so very many things!  It is an online store which provides a step-up for young Australian designers and artists to have some exposure, where our lovely customers can pick up a unique treasure for themselves or as a gift!  We have lots of cute things like jewellery, brooches, tote bags, zines, homewares and lots more! We also have quite the popular little blog which highlights happenings, events, exhibitions and news on Australian art, design, fashion, music and film.  We have a team of guest bloggers and of course both myself and Renee write over on the blog too about whatever tickles our latest fancy.

Leeloo is also an organiser of art exhibitions.  In the past, in collaboration with great people like the Finders Keepers and Frankie Magazine we’ve had exhibitions at Sydney’s aMBUSH gallery such as the Once Upon exhibition, and DisBand, which we also took to Melbourne’s No Vacancy Gallery. Last year at the Melbourne Finders Keepers market we also held the Drawn From Fashion exhibition, where artists chose runway images from previous Melbourne Fashion Festival shows and created an original artwork.

We are an ongoing supporter of the Finders Keepers markets too!  As such you will see us at every market with a stall full of our incredible treats. We just love helping out our designers and the artistic community in Australia by raising awareness and providing education, support, and a nurturing environment.

Who are the team behind Leeloo and what different strengths do they bring?
I’m Angela, the founder and director of Leeloo.  I am in charge of customer management, I am the curator of the designers, the organiser of the business and project manager of exhibitions, I build and configure the web store, co-ordinate the blog, including writing my own blog posts. I bring an artistic eye and the skill to make decisions with an honest friendliness to the store. I guess I’m founder, director and creative director, as well as the technical person behind the web store.

Renee Anne is my second in command, but she is so much more than that. Renee helps out with a huge amount of hard work and enthusiasm, specialising in graphic design, photography and flourishes Leeloo with her artistic talents, but she essentially embodies the spirit of Leeloo. Renee has a strong passion for art, design and fashion, for all things Australian and eco, and to boot she’s probably the best friend a girl could ever have. Given that she started as one of the Leeloo artists/designers, it is her determination and hard work that has meant she is one of the most prolific illustrators and designers in the community.

Lara is our some times administrator who helps us with spreadsheets and administration and numbers and organising stuff when she can!  Lara is very detail oriented which means the I’s are dotted and the t’s are crossed!

The dog behind the team is Leeloo herself.  She’s a magical and special dog who makes you feel like the most important things in life are playing, sleeping and eating. We think she’s on to something.

When did you launch your online store and what was the motivation?
Leeloo began almost exactly 4 years ago, in November 2007 we opened our online doors!  It began as a way for me to combine my passion for Australian design, art and fashion, with the skills I’d accrued after years in various I.T., corporate and retail positions. I originally intended to have an artistic life, but ended up in 9 to 5 jobs.  I wanted to stop that happening to other people. I’ve always thought that the arts in Australia needed additional support, so I wanted to find a way to create something where both designers and artists felt that they could have help getting a foot in the door, whilst being able to have a cute place to shop online.

You just returned from the Etsy Conference in Berlin – what were some of the highlights?
Wow where do I start?!  The conference was an amazing gathering of people from all over the world who wanted to hear cutting-edge speakers discuss sustainability and small business in the new “post-collapse” economy.  The conference was meticulously organised by the Etsy team in Berlin headed by Matt Stinchcomb, with all of the trimmings.  To boot, the core of the conference was packed full of educational information and inspiring and motivational speakers who are leaders in their respective industry.  It was entertaining and friendly, and Renee and I made connections with like-minded people all over the world. Amongst many of the great talks, a must see is Douglas Rushkoff’s lecture.  Truly amazing.

What do you look for in the products you stock at Leeloo?
We like something that’s cute, useable, kind of “on trend”, a little bit quirky, something that we haven’t seen before. We like things made with love, quality and an eye for detail.  The main drawcard is whether or not the pieces make you smile, or open a window of curiousity where you want to know more about the item or the designer. They of course have to be made in Australia too!

What makes your store unique? And what inspires and motivates you daily?
Our store is unique firstly in it’s level of girly prettiness! We also pride ourselves on our friendly customer service!  Our daily motivation and inspiration comes from seeing the changes that come from within and around the indie Australian community and the feeling that we’re making a difference to that no matter how small it might be!  On the odd occasion we’ll receive the most simple email from a designer or a customer, where the gratitude is expressed in such a way, that it gives you such a massive BURST of motivation to keep on going!  We were heavily inspired on our recent trip overseas and our daily dose of inspiration via the web is definitely essential, for images as well as information.

What advice would you give to designers that are looking to be stocked at Leeloo?
Friendliness and organisation is key!  We love a great product from a new artist and designer but there does need to be some professionalism and thought put behind your designs and your label.  Think about the overall aesthetic and Leeloo and whether your goodies will appear to be cohesive in the mix.  Follow Leeloo on Facebook and Twitter and read the blog, see if Leeloo is a match to your own brand and whether it’s the right fit for you.  We now only have two yearly intakes for new goodies, so it’s important to keep your eyes peeled on those locations for information on submissions too!

What exciting projects and collaborations do you have planned for the rest of the year?
Our ongoing collaboration with the Finders Keepers market (from their Hope Street Market days) has been integral to Leeloo.  It is the most important collaboration that we have and we’ll continue to attend the markets with a stall packed full of Leeloo goodies!  We’ve just had the Brisbane market in November, and the Sydney market coming up in December and we can’t wait!  To add to all of the excitement, we’ll once again be co-ordinating the art exhibition at the Sydney Finders Keepers market, “On The Wall” where we will showcase a range of Australian art right near our stall!  We are also keen to create another art exhibition a la Drawn From Fashion for the Melbourne Fashion Festival in 2012, as well as more exhibitions.  There’s a few other projects going on but I can’t tell you about them yet! (as much as I want to!)

www.leeloo.com.au

FK chats with Jeni Oye, about her gorgeous contemporary online jewellery store, Oye Modern

Tell us a bit about Oye Modern and the concept behind it.
Oye Modern is an online store with a world-class collection of unique short-run jewellery by independent and emerging designers. We are one of the leading online contemporary jewellery stores in the world.

I’ve always had a passion for good design, but had trouble finding unique and interesting jewellery. Disposable, mass produced fashion jewellery is contributing to our ever growing environmental issues so I wanted to create a jewellery store that embraced good, timeless design that withstands the seasonal fashion cycles. In the past there’s really only been about ten galleries in Australia that sold contemporary jewellery. I could see a great need to make unique jewellery more accessible to people, and in turn to give designers more opportunity to get their jewellery out to a wider audience. Oye Modern provides the perfect platform for this, with a minimum of 40% of our sales being shipped overseas. For an emerging designer in small town Hobart this is quite an extraordinary opportunity.

We support designers from all walks of life, product designers like F!NK who typically do homewares but have a small jewellery line, animators like Mariette who works for Dreamworks and makes awesome retro jewellery on the side, and photographers like Craig Arnold who recycles old camera lenses into bracelets. Our product range is broad and has some eclectic and quirky designs, in addition to modern contemporary silver and gold jewellery. The two key attributes to all our pieces are good design and quality craftsmanship.

What is your background and what lead you to where you are?
I have always had a passion for good design and I think that is the core ingredient that has led me to where I am today. In high school I discovered I was good at art, maths and science, a funny combination I know, but it led me to do an Industrial Design course at Uni. The course turned out to be the perfect combination of my passion and skills. Unfortunately not much product design or manufacture happens in Australia anymore, so I got involved in this thing called the Internet which was brand new at the time (I’m showing my age!). My first job was coding HTML and from there I moved into various management roles and finally into User Experience Design. I then worked for the next 10 years at world-class web design consultancies such as Sapient and LBi. In 2001 I moved to New York City and continued web consulting, but I was getting itchy feet and that was when I started doing jewellery classes at night and on weekends I would sell my creations on the street and at the Young Designers Market in SOHO.

I got married and moved back to Australia and had my first child. Then I did what a lot of new mothers do, and decided I was done with consulting and I wanted to do something I was 100% passionate about, and Oye Modern was born. It was the perfect culmination of my skills – web design, jewellery and product design, and lots of enthusiasm!

Can you tell me about the team behind Oye Modern and their roles?
The team behind Oye Modern is quite small. Core to Oye Modern’s existence is my husband Phil Oye – he’s the techy guy who designs and builds the website, he’s a self-taught product photographer and a master of design critique. His bar of excellence is so high it pushes everything we do to very high standards of quality and design.  When he’s not working on Oye Modern he’s consulting to companies about their online strategy and user experience.

Petina Watkins is Oye Modern’s first full time employee who just started this month. She’s our marketing manager and is focused on getting the word out there to everyone who loves design. She ran her own fashion boutique “I Like You” for 7 years in Melbourne, which also features on Finders Keepers, so she knows the design industry in Australia and will do great things with Oye Modern.

We also have various people who work part time and help with customer service, packaging orders, copyrighting, bookkeeping, and jewellery production, all in addition to the 35+ designers that are the backbone of what we do everyday.

What challenges have you faced running and setting up your own business?
My biggest personal challenge has been growing a startup business whilst managing a young family. We had three kids under two years old for a while, and I remember doing customer service via email in hospital the day after giving birth to the twins. But I have learnt patience and time management and those two things are essential to getting through those early years.

On the business side, the current economic climate is certainly challenging, but I think one of our biggest learning curves has been in photography. Photographing shiny silver jewellery on a white background is extremely difficult, but we have learnt a lot and have almost mastered it now. Our more recent challenge is shooting all our new products on a model, so we’ve had to learn about styling and portrait photography, and next on our list is to get into video, an even greater challenge I am sure.

What qualities do you look for in the jewellery you stock?
There are three core attributes to the jewellery we take on. One, it must have a clean modern aesthetic, two, it must be of a high quality and excellence in craft, and three, it must be unique, different, and not mass produced.

Our jewellery is for modern stylish women who value quality & uniqueness, and good design is embedded in their lifestyle. The jewellery is versatile and can be worn easily in a woman’s everyday life – work, play, family, night out, casual and formal. We also find customers buying for special occasions such as birthdays, anniversaries, 18th’s, 21st’s, engagements and weddings. We launch new designers and products every week so we are constantly building upon the range and offering more variety and choice.

What advice would you give to jewellery designers about the possibility of being represented on Oye Modern?
My one piece of advice is that it never hurts to submit your designs, if you don’t submit how will we know you exist? All we require are some photos of your work and a brief description of who you are and what you’re doing. We’ve deliberately made it easy to submit via email, and I try my best to respond to all submissions.

What is your favourite part about running your online shop?
Ohh that’s tricky, it’s probably a few things. Being able to wear awesome jewellery every day, dealing with creative designers every day and being surrounded by people who love and appreciate excellence in design. In the last few months I’ve also started to create my own line of jewellery for Oye Modern, again going back to my design roots, I can’t help myself! I have a jewellery collection for bicycle fashionistas in production at the moment, which I am super excited about. We are in full swing gearing up for Christmas, so if you love design and are looking for a unique gift for someone special, please stop by!

oyemodern.com